Astro Boy is this month’s cover and the feature is about Osamu Tezuka.

Once you open the magazine you are given a face full of an ad for La Blue Girl. I LOVE Anime 18’s warnings on the covers for their hentai “WARNING! ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CHILDREN” Gee, you would think the ‘uncensored’ bar on the woman’s breasts would be a clue. Plus the TENTACLES are BACK!

It still amazes me that hentai ads appeared in 90’s era anime magazines. Awesome.

Also, Central Park Media, which had Anime 18 for their hentia, US Manga Corps for their Anime, is now placing ads for Software Sculptors label – currently focused on CD-Rom anime (digital episodes WAY before iTunes or xBox) and screensavers.

Now in this issue, Software Sculptors is releasing the first anime under this lable, not US Manga Corps. Why? No clue. Way before my time.

The Software Sculptors ads are a FAR departure from US Manga Corp ads. Still CPM but the ads are night and day on design. The ad for Metal Fighter Miku has a lot of white space and very little copy. This type of ad is what you would see in anime magazines in 10 years.

If you are missing text in your anime ads, VIZ has you covered this issue with the Scrabble ad for Ramna 1/2. It reads more like a catalog page instead of an ad. It’s still effective but WOW, that’s a lot of copy.

Manga comes in this month with an ad for Ninja Scroll – of the titles that mad them a lot of money.

ADV look like they have a quota of 2 ads in each issue – Devil Hunter Yohko (again?) and Sol Bianca.

The last two items are not ads.First off is I wanted to scan the page of the prize winners of “It’s an Animerica Christmas” Contest. I love the winner photos. If a great snapshot of 90’s anime geek style trends.

Last item is the FIRST images of Evangelion. Character are is shown: EVA Unit 01 is listed, Shinji is listed but Asuka is mislabeled as Rei.

I love this quote from Hideaki Anno about Neon Genesis Evangelion’s tone: “If a person likes robot or cutesy girl animation, can that person get past the age of twenty and still be really happy?”

BEST EDITORIAL LINE EVER: “Could Anno and Sadamoto be creating something even more cultish than Nadia and Honneamise?